ARS | Publication request: EFFECTIVENESS OF LIQUID-SOLID SEPARATION FOR TREATMENT OF FLUSHED DAIRY MANURE: A CASE STUDY

Submitted to: ASAE Annual International Meeting
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: July 19, 1999
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: Sunny Day Farm is the home of the highest producing registered Jersey herd in the world. The cows are housed in a freestall barn and manure is removed from the barn using a flush system. The manure treatment system on this farm includes the following components configured in series: an inclined stationary screen separator, a settling basin, and a lagoon. Samples were taken to quantify the performance of the existing manure treatment system. In addition, settling experiments were carried out with the unscreened and screened manure to determine how well settling of dairy manure could be enhanced with a polymer (PAM) and aluminum sulfate. The inclined stationary screen separator removed 61% of the total solids, 63% of the volatile solids, 46% of the ammonia-N, 52% of the organic-N, and 53% of the total P. The complete manure treatment system removed 93% of the TS, 96% of the VS, 54% of the ammonia-N, 91% of the organic-N, and 74% of the total P. Addition of 250 to 400 mg PAM/L to screened and unscreened dairy manure significantly increased the removal of suspended total and volatile solids, organic-N, total P, Cu and Zn. The optimum amount of PAM to add was 300 mg/L for screened and unscreened manure. Alum was only practical for screened dairy manure.